So to no-one's surprise Darksaint decided to bring up a cloning strategy. I'm seeing this as an aknowledgement that he has no chance in hell of beating my team on straight combat. Let's get more into the details of how our gameplans interact.
First of all I want to thank DS for providing me to this extra showing of Lobo being possesed that is being passed up as a "speed feat":
Indeed Deadman reacts slower than an instinctive adrenaline charged and savage Lobo who is in the middle of a battle. Think of it as muscle memory acting faster than consious thought. This is really nothing out of the usual for someone trying to control a character in berserker state and I don't see it as proof of Lobo somehow speedblitzing my two characters.
I will be charming Lobo and using his wildness to make him try to duke it out with Wendigo quite immediately, Wendigo can jump at him fast enough to intersect a flight plane, taking him off the bike if he ever gets on it. By the way, I'll let the judges decide whether he should start riding the bike or if starting the battle riding it constitutes prep, this would give me even more of an advantage as far as pulling off my plan first, clearly.
Now, Darksaint seems to be under the impression that his bike is well beyond my speed tier. Fin Fang Foom has interplanetary speed feats that easily put him in lightspeed, such as travelling between planets in the course of a few pages:
You might say "Bent, there is no specific distance and timeframes in these feats, how can you figure they are transluminal?", unless you believe these three locations were found within the same solar system, this kind of speed is transluminal. Also notice how FFF is talking about the vastness of space and Terrax who an herald doesn't seem to be able to detect the infant he's looking for, so that adds to the idea of these distances being huge.
So I have the travel speed to intercept the bike and with a single hit, suddenly Lobo's mobility becomes sh*t. If somehow he manages to run off with the bike I can follow and intercept him, boil the blood he leaves behind or even ignore it, since Lobo creating clones in Antartica or the middle of the Ocean won't matter a bit when the Main Lobo gets knocked dow ove over in China.
Also to be honest that blood is probably boiling mid-air due to friction because it's just falling off too fast. Darksaint's plan actually does nothing other than having Lobo flying around like a dork.
---
But I don't think it'll matter, Lobo has an established weakness to manipulation:
Tech, magic, pheromones, you name it. You'd think his psychic resistances would prevent it to some degree but he decided to prep against pheromones rather than trying to resist:
Using the Wendigo heart will fit right into my plan of manipulating Lobo's aggressive nature while he struggles in this hybrid form. It'll be over quite fast as soon as I get to him.
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If despite every evidence I presented you still think Lobo has a chance of getting away in his bike and carry out his cloning plan, even if you say blood won't evaporate or you doubt Fin Fang Foom can simply take him down mid-flight... Nothing is stopping me from infecting one of the clones instead, making him a Fin Fang Foom hybrid on top of a Czarnian and making my own army of enhanced clones.
If you think I can control Lobo but you believe I'm unable to control him well enough for whatever reason, I'm always capable of throwing Lobo's spirit into another draconic body:
Except he will just have a regular dragon body and non of my experience power and czarnian enhancements. FFF has a long story of beating the crap out of other space dragons
Ultimately I have a ton of options to deal with the plan Darksaint presented even assuming my strategy doesn't go exactly as intended.
Spring Tourney Round 1
Post 2
*Le sigh*
I had high hopes, dear readers, I really did. But it appears Bentley has decided to unfortunately go the lowball route, and not actually address anything in my posts (nor, the weaknesses within his). I will, as always, be taking the high road here, judges. I COULD easily do the same as he - use lowball tactics for Foom, or for Wendigo. But no, I am far too classy for that.
Let us start.
Firstly, please note, judges, that he snuck an illegal scan into his OP. The version he had drafted specifically did not infect people with scratches and bites - yet, after being told this, he mysteriously left that scan in and didn't even acknowledge it in his 2nd post. Very well, judges - since he disregarded it, you must too.
Secondly, his entire strategy depends on TWO tactics - 1) Use mind control, and 2) use said mind-control to...force Lobo to eat Wendigo's heart, thus cursing Lobo with the Wendigo curse. Great plan, so let's pick it apart.
Mind-control
He uses scans of Foom...controlling a mere human with ZERO resistance feats. Apparently, this is enough to control Lobo (let's ignore that there are actually hundreds of thousands of Lobos dropping down on his giant dragon head). Lobo, whose willpower is enough to overwhelm Green Lantern willpower: (please log in to view the image)
OK, that's a bit better. How about Starro the Conquerer? And yes, this shows every single clone will have equal amounts of willpower: https://i.ibb.co/mJ2kBBf/RCO016-w.jpg
Note that last panel. Look who else succumbed. Yup, Hal 'god of willpower' Jordan is there. Kilowog. Willpower out the wazoo.
But you know, Bentley has totally proven his tactic is legit, because it worked on some random human once, over a matter of weeks, without Foom having hundreds of thousands of clones beating the crap out of him. Note, this isn't lowballing - this is literally the only mind control feat Bentley has shown. Against someone with ZERO mind control resistance feats, sure, maybe. But this is a clearcut example of no limits fallacy going on.
But then...
Eating Wendigo (please log in to view the image)
I think Bentley has forgotten what Lobo's name means. 'One who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it'.
He attempts to pass the curse of the Wendigo onto me, which sounds like a clever plan, EXCEPT: it does NOT WORK.
I trust this drives home what I am getting at. The Wendigo curse arises when a human eats another human. Cannibalism.
Lobo most assuredly is not human. Eating Wendigo would do nothing except....well, give Lobo heartburn, maybe?
All Bentley's strategy does, is have Foom trying desperately to mind-control a single Lobo as hundreds tear him apart, and Wendigo being eaten alive with a hearty burp from others.
That's assuming my own plan doesn't succeed.
Again, this is not lowballing - this is a giant gaping hole in Bentley's strategy. It's like bringing Kryptonite to fight Shazam. He has sacrificed Wendigo, just so Foom can...try to mind control a guy who's fought off Starro, who's overpowered Green and Yellow Lanterns, was resistant to beings who OVERPOWERED Green Lanterns, whilst hundreds of thousands of clones, all with equal willpower feats, rain down on him. OK.
Some other points to bring up:
Oh? Foom will burn the blood? With his nuclear furnace breath? See Solaris, a literal living SUN, failing to burn Lobo. I mean, I assume they meant nuclear reactor, which reaches a whopping....300 degrees C (source: https://www.google.com/search?q=tem...me&ie=UTF-8)
Nice. I will leave you guys to Google how hot neutron stars get, let alone living ones who are actively trying to burn you
He has some nice panels of Foom flying. Nice. Zero speed feats, though.
A werewolf! Nice, now we are getting somewhere. Except Bentley fails to mention that Lobo was still in full possession of his mental faculties (check his scans of him fighting). In short, relying on him 'struggling in his hybrid state', whilst presenting scans of him being VERY combat effective, seems...weird.
In short, he has an imaginative plan split over two parts, where both parts unfortunately don't work. Meanwhile, he has no answer whatsoever to my clones (the heat he brings can't burn the blood, and he has no way of catching me)nor has he shown any durability feats to being torn apart.
Once again thanks to all the judges for your attention and I hope you've been having fun with this brief scuffle. Thanks to Darksaint for surviving reading these issues with me.
Let's start with a quick wrap up of the points DarkSaint skimmed over:
- No proof that Lobo's blood can resist friction from air at high match speeds nor acidic breath.
- No mention of riding the bike at the beginning of the match (I guess he conceeded that point)
- No counter to the fact these Lobos will be stranded too far away from me to matter, he explicitly stated he intends to bleed out all around the globe.
- Casually dismissing my space travelling feats while all of his motorcycle feats happened in space (here you can see Lobo leaving the atmosphere before doing full throtle https://justpaste.it/img/7216289963...666836cbea7.jpg
He has tried to convince you that his plan simply works and has focused in the fact my strategy wants to impede his actions. Even if I somehow failed his strategy is full of holes which he failed to convicingly patch with proof.
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Now, let's reinforce some of the points that DarkSaint tried to counter:
Acidic Breath will be working against the blood Lobo loses, acid changes the chemical structure of substances it touches so it's anybody's guess whenher the blood can take it. The Solaris scans that DS brought did not show any clones appearing from his wounds, this is a fine heat resistance feat but I'm specifically using breath to target the cloning spam to reduce it's effects in my immediate environement.
I aknowledged myself that Lobo has some cool mental resistance feeds, but I did take it into consideration when advancing my strategy. The people who tried to fully control Lobo's mind failed due to its savagery and will-power, but people who tricked Lobo and redirected his mind succeeded to great degree. It's essentially the difference between trying to restrain a bigger opponent and using a judo throw against them. The most powerful entities that tried to mind-control Lobo (Starro, the Neural Djinn) were parasites that needed a host and who didn't have the possibility of throwing Lobo's spirit outside his own body like I do. What I'm going to do is focus his agressiveness into Wendigo through misdirection, convincing him that he can only can carry out his plan after dealing with him and use that to have him eat the heart. Remember: the feat of Starro failing to control Lobo clones and Lobo getting pwned by pheromones happened in the same story arc, these are two different things and it clearly shows Lobo can't simply deal with any manipulation through sheer will despite showing he has such mental strength. DarkSaint is trying to sell you that he'll have inmunity to an established weakeness that is presented in the very comics he uses as proof. I'm also going to back up my initial manipulation with a transformation of Lobo's body, which is another effect that has been proven to affect him greatly.
Regarding the legality of my plan of turning Lobo into a Wendigo, we know Hulk was turned and he's biologically very different from a human (even capable of breeding with an alien) and we also know that Wendigo flesh can turn you into it (https://imgur.com/vSGjsd4) and those are no longer biologically human. Also thanks to this abomination: Xiomara Rojas (Prime Earth) | DC Database | Fandom, we know Lobo is close enough to a human to breed with one. So I think there is a legit argument that in this specific case we have to elements to have it working. But also it happens that while I was asking about my control over the Wendigo curse Philo pretty much confirmed it works for the purposes of the match:
Philosophía wrote on Mar 5th, 2021 10:20 AM:
You mean by the heart/flesh eating ritual type of stuff, passing off the curse to Foom? You'd still be in control of Foom as it's your own character. So you'd have Findigo under your control
Makulians are waaaay less similar to humans than czarnians who inter-breed. I'm ok with leaving this up to interpretation from the judges though: consider my arguments for it working and if it doesn't I have the venue of throwing up Lobo's essence into a split body like Kamisama did with Piccolo anyways.
And again, with the bike we got a bunch of space travel feats to brag about its speed but DarkSaint readily dismisses my own space travel feats. You can't have the cake and eat it too, you are fast in space and I'm fast in space, that's the only speed you managed to bring to the table according to your scans and I'm posting similar feats. If I bust your bike which I can intercept with my speed and range your mobility becomes so bad any mountain or lake becomes a difficult barrier to overcome and I'm still a space faring dragon. Actually you probably fall off the bike as soon as it gets hit with my initial breath that tries to burn the blood that comes out from your mouth, it might just melt mid-flight from tere, or break when my Wendigo crashes into you. You need to flee very fast to even have the slightest chance to survive this and your initial position and reflexes as mentioned here, are unimpressive.
So to sum it up:
- My manipulation is consistent with the comic depiction of Lobo.
- He has been shown affected by transformations, either dragon form or wendigo.
- Lobo interbred with humans so canibalism is not as easily dismissed as DS pretends.
- Lobo's speed feats and reflexes here do not suggest he can blitz his way out of our opening attack.
- DS's plan is full of holes.
- My versatility makes it so I can back up my plan with the sheer weirdness of mypowers:
Initially that strategy took a lot to device but having used it before Fin Fang Foom will be able to use it on demand.
My strategy is full of transforming and using vices to win, it's a monstrosity that gets to shine in full glory. The logical result of such horrendous comics and it might be the best that comes out of them, geez.
Thanks for your attention
__________________
“Perhaps this is the ultimate freedom. The freedom to leave.”
Last post, readers, and thanks to Bentley for this warm-up on my way to the crown. I will attempt to do as I usually do - summarise both sides for the judges, and showcase the gaping holes in my opponent’s posts and the simultaneous airtightness of mine.
Bentley’s strategy has two steps - 1)Use his mindcontrol on Lobo, and 2) use Lobo to eat Wendigo’s heart, transferring the curse to Lobo. Along the way, he adds some fringes of colour, some fripperies and trinkets to spice the strategy up-his acidic breath to burn blood, Wendigo to run straight at Lobo, dragonic spirits - but nothing of real substance.
With his first step, he attempts to prove this by using the example of Billy Yuan. Judges, without googling, please recall any mental resistance feats you can of Billy. Look back over Bentley’s posts, to see if he posted any proof of this.
I will save you the time. Billy is a nobody, with no feats. Lobo outpowers Green Lanterns with sheer willpower. Resists Starro the Conqueror. Resists the Neural Djinn, who can take over the mind of anyone in the universe. Resists the Blackrock, who mindcontrols heroes like Martian Manhunter, Hal Jordan, Kilowog et al.
(please log in to view the image)
Sure, he has his low feats. Everyone does. That’s like me posting Wendigo passing out from being shot in the stomach by Canadian police and Wolverine fighting him:
Now, I am NOT using this as proof, judges. Bentley does not need to rebut it. Whilst the scan is new, the argument is not (hence my usage of it). It is a crappy lowball showing, and every comic character has them. But at least we know they are low showings, because they have high showings. In my case, I actually showed feats for Lobo where he resists mental control.
Billy, however, has none. Foom hasn’t mind-controlled anyone of note, certainly not in the scans Bentley posted in his two posts. Even moreso, Foom would be under attack by dozens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, of Lobos, all with equal mental resistance feats (see Starro) and equal strength/speed feats.
In his next step, he posits that Lobo - whilst mindcontrolled - would devour the heart of Wendio, transferring the curse over. Except, as I showed, the curse is when a human eats a human:
More confirmation of this:
(please log in to view the image)
Even the shifting of the curse needs more magic:
(please log in to view the image)
Lobo is not human. There is no cannibal curse. I can’t go into a classic Thor BZ, then say ‘hey, in a BZ all powers would work, so I will simply argue that Doomsday would be able to lift Mjolnir’, or ‘hey, I don’t need to yell Shazam to gain Cap Marvel’s powers, any ole word would do’.
Mjolnir’s blessing is specific to those who are worthy. Shazam’s powers are specific to saying the wizard’s name. The Wendigo curse is specific to cannibals. Lobo wouldn’t be affected, as he’s not the same species as a human (bears repeating, though obvious).
All Bentley achieves is a sacrificial Wendigo when the army of Lobos descend upon him, all of whom would thoroughly enjoy devouring his entrails.
Meanwhile, with my plan?
Match starts, I get out of there. Bentley tried posting some ‘speed’ feats, but come on, judges - having blurry stars as one’s proof, when I posted actual speeds? No contest there. A reminder:
Bonus - note how Lobo isn’t ‘burning up’ from air friction or whatever (and yes, there is air - his cigar is alight). Really, trying to use RL physics, with Lobo of all characters? Won’t work.
As I leave, and as I circle the globe multiple times, I bleed all over the world. The clones all go to attack Bentley’s team - in short, a neverending army, continuously popping up (not to mention, any Lobos he cuts with Wendigo etc will also become clones).
A Lobo (note, I never even specified if it was the real deal Main Man) flies back at speed, through Foom’s head. He’s tough, but as I mentioned in the OP, we need PIERCING durability feats from Foom. None were forthcoming. As the bike goes through his head, remember, armies of Lobos are swarming and hacking at Foom’s body.
He can try to burn me, but a neutron star hellbent on burning Lobo was unable to do so:
(please log in to view the image)
‘Oh, no’. ‘Oh, YES!’
Re-read his OP. He is trying to use his breath - whilst at the same time, attempting to use mind-control (or was it dragonic possession?). Yet, no feats of him multitasking in such a manner. If he REALLY is trying to burn all these clones who are attacking him, there is no way he is also able to even begin an attempt at mind-control, let alone against someone who is actively fighting back and, on his own, is able to overpower GLs. Let alone an entire army.
Then with Wendigo, a single, simple blood spitball from a single Lobo, which expands into a fully sized clone, would split his head apart.
Now multiply that by a hundred times. A thousand times.
He talks about prep, and how getting onto the bike constitutes prep....but this is how I envisaged them entering the ‘arena’:
And even if not - considering he has literally nothing that can harm me over 0.5km, infinite acceleration and casual ½ lightspeed means I would be gone before he can do anything.
This was indeed a fun match for me (reading Lobo comics, aside). Unfortunately, Bentley, as French as you are, there is some cheese that is too strong, even for you.
P.S: remember his illegal scans!
__________________
“Perhaps this is the ultimate freedom. The freedom to leave.”
What a wonderful read this was. From the start, I questionged the logic of allowing a character like Lobo to take part in a tourney like this, but I have to say I'm glad he was. What I got was a thoroughly enjoyable back and forth, with both posters putting their best foot forward. I liked how the posts and strategies were put together, and more than once I found myself flip-flopping between which side of the argument I liked back.
Eventually it came down to me feeling like there was just no way to know if Fing Fang Foom could do all of the things, consistently, the way Bentley was saying they would. On the other hand, Darksaint's plan was more straightforward and, in my opinion, had less chance of failing. As the match went on, I found it harder and harder to believe that Bentley's team could account for every single, solitary drop of Lobo's blood, while in contrast, Darksaint only needed a small amount of things
So with that in mind, my vote goes to Darksaint.
Delta's verdict:
So onto their plans.
DarkSaint wants to overwhelm Bently with clones and make FFF's head go splat flying his bike through. Bently wants to mind control Lobo and turn him into Wendigo while burning the blood to prevent clones.
Bentley's argument that Lobo would be turned didn't work for me, given the large number of times DS showed it's caused by human cannibalism. The argument that Czarnians can interbreed with humans just isn't good enough. Related, the scan of the town being turned into Wendigos from scratches and bites isn't well explained and doesn't show it would work on aliens either.
Bentley's argument on mind controlling Lobo doesn't hold up to me. As DS pointed out Bently posted one mind control feat of a random person, and when I compare poor showings for Lobo being controlled to good showings resisting it, the good simply outweigh the bad being more numerous. On top of this, Bently didn't provide anything to show this would work at the distance they start.
The argument that FFF would just burn Lobo's blood doesn't hold up to evidence. DS showed the temperature of a nuclear reactor and told us to check temperature of a neutron star. The temperature he gave for a nuclear reactor being 300 C. I took this a step further to benefit Bently and compared the temperature of one melting down to a neutron star. For a meltdown I got about 3,000 C. Average temperature of a neutron star? Around 600,000 C.....I don't see even the comparatively weak blood being evaporated by FFF or the friction.
As for Bently arguing speed, flight speed is dandy, but the best reaction feat given is against a fighter jet. Yes, the bike is space flight too, but this is coming straight at you, not the same as reacting to it. Even assuming FFF is physically fast enough to react, you're going to be swarmed by clones, fighting them all over AND notice the bike coming at you and smacking it? That's assuming you're not even overwhelmed by the clones to begin with.
On Wendigo getting blood spit through his head, I do think the clone growing in his head would be enough to put him down, but not sold on the blood actually penetrating, given zero durability feats were shown for the guy he spit through the head of. But I just see him overwhelmed anyways.
So, my verdict goes to DarkSaint.
Congratulations Darksaint, you are the winner. You advance to the semi-finals.
__________________
“Perhaps this is the ultimate freedom. The freedom to leave.”